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This paper aims to provide analysis on the state of UK commercial service charge accounting practices when the guiding regulatory framework changed to a mandatory professional standard.

From a critical review of the accounting requirements of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Professional Standard, the paper develops metrics for measuring the quality of service charge accounts. These metrics are used to measure accounting quality within 154 accounting statements prepared during the first year of the Standard’s implementation.

The paper identifies conceptual weaknesses in the RICS Professional Standard and poor levels of compliance with many of its accounting requirements. The findings suggest that long-standing issues remain unsolved and also identify new areas of concern within present accounting practices for UK commercial service charges.

The data were obtained from accounting documents prepared by 68 landlords and 40 managing agents for the commercial clients of one UK service charge consultancy company. Although the population is representative of industrywide practice, further longitudinal analysis is required to improve generalisability.

The paper provides performance metrics that stakeholders can use for benchmarking accounting quality. The RICS needs to act to improve accounting practice or risk government intervention. Some corporate landlords must provide higher quality service charge accounts or risk potentially losing occupiers to competing schemes.

This work provides a unique dataset that explores the role of the RICS Professional Standard in improving UK service charge accounting practices.

Addressing grand challenges requires an in-depth understanding of the social constructs, such as the gender discourse that shapes gender equality. Accounting, through annual reporting, contributes to constructing realities, thus impacting grand challenges. This paper explores how organizational reporting by a non-governmental organization (NGO) promotes particular ideologies about gender in a changing sociocultural context.

The paper uses a case study of an NGO that has long used annual reports to disseminate its perspectives on gender. Drawing on 1,251 pages of annual reports (in French, a gendered language), including 1,618 visuals, from 1995 to 2021, we use feminist and ideological perspectives to analyse the rhetorical strategies used.

The results show that the NGO’s annual reports include evolving perspectives on gender. In an earlier period, it emphasizes complementarity between men and women while assigning primary roles to men. More recently, while the organization continues to support traditional visions on gender representation, the reporting narratives and visuals strive towards greater inclusivity. The findings also suggest instances of ambiguity in how an organization can use narratives and visuals, prompting a discussion on the idea of rhetorical ambiguity in organizational reporting.

This study shows how organizational reporting longitudinally evolves regarding grand challenges, beyond financial and business matters. The paper identifies sites of gender ideology in both visuals and narratives of the reports.

This study aims to develop an understanding of strategies used by two major banks in Australia to manage reputation risk after court proceedings were initiated by the government for serious breaches of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006.

The study is grounded in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and image restoration literature. Thematic analysis of court proceedings, banks’ annual report suites (which include sustainability reports) and media reports was undertaken using the conceptual framework of reputation risk management (RRM).

A major new strategy of image restoration – defiance – emerged. It is contended that the existing RRM framework needs to be refined. Similarly, in the reducing effectiveness strategy, two new sub-strategies need to be included: refusal to acknowledge an incident as reputational damage and acceptance of the statutory penalty without legally challenging it. The banks also used traditional strategies of the RRM framework, such as reducing effectiveness by minimisation, bolstering, corrective action and mortification.

Trustworthiness and confidence are at the core of modern banking. Banks use CSR disclosures as the principal means for image restoration. The present paper explores the link between extant CSR literature and RRM.

This chapter discusses the role of school leadership in the face of climate disasters and environmental injustices. These disruptions to schooling are emblematic of an increasing global uncertainty. School leaders play a pivotal role mitigating uncertainty following an environmental crisis or disaster through leadership activities that support their communities. However, preparing school leaders for unexpected disruptions to schooling has often been overlooked by preparation programs and professional development. The goal of this chapter is to equip school leaders with an essential understanding of both the influence of environmental injustice on schools and the tools to respond effectively to these events. First, the chapter contextualizes environmental injustice and inequality as a factor that influences school and student performance, especially for students living below the poverty line and students of color. Next, it synthesizes how school leaders have responded to prior instances of climate disasters and environmental injustices. Finally, it presents key considerations for school leaders confronting future occurrences.

Specific teaching and learning objectives include to identify factors influencing market expansion decisions and recommend appropriate entry modes, understand factors in the international business environment that contribute to success or failure of international businesses in developing countries, evaluate strategies enabling international businesses to sustain market presence in developing countries and overcome local competition, analyze the concept of local responsiveness in international business operations and suggest strategies for internationalizing domestic companies from developing countries.

The McDonald’s case examines the challenges associated with market expansion by global brands. The case occurs during the early-globalization era in the 1990s. Barbados, a developing country, is the site for potential expansion. Prospective investors, the Winters, are desirous of establishing a McDonald’s in Barbados. They need to thoroughly analyze the previous experience of McDonald’s against the host country’s current international business environment, e.g. political, economic, cultural and competitive environment. This case analysis provides a framework for understanding the multifaceted reasons behind McDonald’s exit from Barbados, considering the complex interplay of political, economic, sociocultural, technological and legal factors in the international business environment. The case equips the instructor and students to explore the risks of international expansion, particularly in developing country markets. The case study on McDonald’s failure in Barbados highlights the need to thoroughly examine one’s market entry strategy and available information on the host market and be more locally responsive regarding tastes and preferences. The case study also presents essential lessons for firms and planners from developing countries. Local firms innovated and enhanced their operations in response to the threat from the entry of the global fast-food giant. Yet, they did not seek to internationalize once McDonald’s exited the Barbadian market. The case study, therefore, considers strategies firms from developing countries could utilize to penetrate markets from developed countries.

At the undergraduate level, the McDonald’s Barbados case can be used in international business classes to highlight risks in the international business environment and the need for a carefully planned and executed market entry strategy.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS5: International Business.

The dynamic nature of the built environment and trending smart construction project complexities demand proactive needs tailored towards architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) education. It is a task for the built environment professionals (BEP) to prepare for the future, including the quantity surveying (QS) profession. Studies are scarce in preparing QS education from Nigeria’s stakeholders’ perspective regarding digital technology. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate how to improve QS education by continually updating curriculum digitalisation to meet the construction industry requirements.

Data were sourced from elite virtual interviews across Nigeria. A total of 40 key stakeholders knowledgeable in QS education, advocating a future template for the advancement of QS education in higher institutions, were engaged, and saturation was achieved.

Findings show that improving QS education through continually updating curriculum digitalisation to meet industry requirements cannot be over-emphasised in the 21st-century-built environment industry. The outcomes of the results led to the conclusion that the current QS education curriculum was not meeting the expectations of other BEP stakeholders. Thus, for competitiveness in the future, the QS education curriculum needs to infuse more related-digital technology modules/courses to assist in the sustainability and relevance of the profession within the BEP.

This paper focussed on improving Nigeria’s QS education using digital technologies via a qualitative approach. Future study is needed via a quantitative approach for broader coverage and validation.

The research revealed the need for designing QS programmes to provide for industry demands with emphasis on digital technologies modules/courses. Nigeria’s QS education stakeholders have been stirred up to embrace the curriculum review and make the profession digitalised and relevant within the BEP. The built environment sector is trending towards digitalisation, and the QS programmes cannot afford to be behind.

This research identified the current gap regarding digitalisation of the curriculum. This study will stir QS educational providers and regulators to improve future programmes via digital technologies. It would encourage the use of digital technologies with the right enabling environment. The outcome would mitigate the gap and improve Nigeria’s QS education in the future.

The purpose of this study is to map the intellectual structure of sustainable finance and accounting (SFA) literature by identifying the influential aspects, main research streams and future research directions in SFA.

The results are obtained using bibliometric citation analysis and content analysis to conduct a bibliometric review of the intersection of sustainable finance and sustainable accounting using a sample of 795 articles published between 1991 and November 2023.

The most influential factors in the SFA literature are identified, highlighting three primary areas of research: corporate social responsibility and environmental disclosure; financial and economic performance; and regulations and standards.

SFA has experienced rapid development in recent years. The results identify the current research domain, guide potential future research directions, serve as a reference for SFA and provide inspiration to policymakers.

SFA typically encompasses sustainable corporate business practices and investments. This study contributes to broader social impacts by promoting improved corporate practices and sustainability.

This study expands on previous research on SFA. The authors identify significant aspects of the SFA literature, such as the most studied nations, leading journals, authors and trending publications. In addition, the authors provide an overview of the three major streams of the SFA literature and propose various potential future research directions, inspiring both academic research and policymaking.

The purpose of this multi-voiced paper is to propose a prosocial paradigm for the field of performance management and management control systems. This new paradigm suggests cultivating prosocial behaviour and prosocial groups in organizations to simultaneously achieve the objectives of economic performance and sustainability.

The authors share a common concern about the future of humanity and nature. They challenge the influential assumption of economic man from neoclassical economic theory and build on evolutionary science and the core design principles of prosocial groups to develop a prosocial paradigm.

Findings are based on the premise of the prosocial paradigm that self-interested behaviour may outperform prosocial behaviour within a group but that prosocial groups outperform groups dominated by self-interest. The authors explore various dimensions of performance management from the prosocial perspective in the private and public sectors.

The authors call for theoretical, conceptual and empirical research that explores the prosocial paradigm. They invite any approach, including positivist, interpretive and critical research, as well as those using qualitative, quantitative and interventionist methods.

This paper offers implications from the prosocial paradigm for practitioners, particularly for executives and managers, policymakers and educators.

Adoption of the prosocial paradigm in research and practice shapes what the authors call the prosocial market economy. This is an aspired cultural evolution that functions with market competition yet systematically strengthens prosociality as a cultural norm in organizations, markets and society at large.

The purpose of this study is to explore how the South African government has used accounting technologies to manage the pervasive issue of racial inequality.

Premised on Foucault’s notion of governmentality, we conducted a qualitative case study. Publicly available archival data are used to determine the extent to which accounting techniques have helped to shape policy responses to racial inequality.

We show that accounting techniques and calculations give visibility to the problems of government and help design a programme to solve racial inequality. The lived experiences and impacts of racism in the workplace have been problematised, turned into statistics, and used to rationalise the need for ongoing government intervention in solving the problem. These processes underpin the development of the scorecard system, which measures the contributions firms have made towards minimising racial inequalities.

This study augments the existing body of Foucauldian literature by illustrating how power dynamics can be counteracted. We show that in governmental processes, accounting can exhibit a dual role, and these roles are not always subordinate to the analysis of political realities. The case of B-BBEE reveals the unintended consequences of utilising accounting to control the conduct of individuals or groups.

This study aims to examine the early stages of family business philanthropy amid institutional transformations to address the challenges of limited statehood. Despite a growing interest in the historical aspects of corporate responsibility, these dimensions remain relatively unexplored, especially in certain regions and for family businesses. However, they hold valuable insights that can contribute to contemporary discussions.

The study analyzes the board minutes of Ingenio Manuelita, an emblematic family business in the sugar industry in Colombia, from 1929 to 1947. Using a qualitative approach, the authors categorize the top management’s decisions to respond to various stakeholders’ demands.

Most early social responsibility in family businesses has been characterized as philanthropy, driven by family owners’ morals and ethical predispositions. The authors argue that depicting these actions as purely entrepreneurial philanthropy or implicit corporate social responsibility fails to capture the strategic dimension of businesses. Ingenio Manuelita implemented a multifaceted approach, comprising charity, providing public goods and increasing wages and social welfare for its employees and communities. The analysis contributes to understanding philanthropy as a practice that arises from the ongoing interaction between the requests formulated by close stakeholders and board members’ willingness, which nonetheless privileges the paternalistic predispositions of the family business board members and systematically reflects strategic business concerns.

The primary contribution of this research is its analysis and explanation of how philanthropic decisions changed within family businesses at the beginning of the 20th century. Specifically, the study proposes that philanthropy in the early 20th century was driven by strategic rationality, in contrast with the paternalistic and charity orientations that characterized philanthropical practices in the 19th century. This work addresses a notable gap in business history literature, which has not adequately explained the emergence and routinization of social responsibility actions. Furthermore, the authors propose the concept of strategic philanthropy to understand the origins of modern social responsibilities of family businesses in Latin America, offering a complementary approach to the paternalist, charity-doing-good hypothesis in traditional (family) business historiography that undervalues the strategic motivations.